Shinfuseki: Go’s Modern Revolution?

Abstract In the autumn of 1933, two young go players, Kitani Minoru and Go Seigen, launched a revolutionary change in the game’s opening style. Initially controversial, shinfuseki as the style came to be known, attracted amateur and professional players alike and helped to reshape the way that the game was played. This has come to be seen as a modernist revolution, stressing speed, scale, and the center of the board over slower, more piecemeal approaches which had predominated. However, I argue that database analysis of the games which were played at the time, as well as textual analysis of contemporary writing, reveals a more complex trajectory. While shinfuseki can indeed be seen as a strategic part of a broader modernization of the game of go, interpreting it requires nuance. Firstly, Kitani and Go’s innovations were built upon a foundation of other players’ experiments: while 1933 was certainly seen at the time as a moment of dramatic change, it was one that had been some time in coming. Secondly, the aim of their experiments was cast not in terms of speed and scale and the center of the board (as has since tended to be the prevailing interpretation), but balance and harmony and by reference to an East Asian classic, the doctrine of the mean. Ultimately, the significance of 1933 as a turning point was less grounded in specific moves than in the emergence of a greater sense of freedom to experiment.